It's a mystery to many: Benjamin Netanyahu's campaign gained steam
when he ruled out the creation of a Palestinian state, and he seems
determined to continue settling occupied land with Jews.
So, why would Israelis again back policies that promise friction of
all kinds - and will dramatically dilute the Jewish character of their
hard-won state by making it inseparable from the millions of
Palestinians in the West Bank?
The answer lies in the details of a conundrum so complicated that the
dynamics of democracy seem hardly able to contain it. Tellingly,
perhaps, the campaign did not even focus on the grand strategic issue
that is now presented as having been decided: Instead the opposition
pledged to address bread-and-butter issues, like the high cost of
living.
The outcome may be different under circumstances that force the
Palestinian issue to the table. If international boycott initiatives
start exacting an economic price on a country that appreciates its high
standard of living, or if the Europeans who are Israel's top trading
partners take off the gloves. Or if the Palestinians rebel, creating a
major security headache, or the United States steps in with peace
proposals backed by muscle.
The West Bank is valuable, the region menacing
Very few Israelis see the 48-year-old West Bank occupation as purely a
nationalist conceit, greedy and anti-Palestinian, though that narrative
certainly has currency in the region and around the world. From a
Palestinian perspective, the West Bank and Gaza Strip combined are just
about a fifth of historic Palestine - the bare minimum that is
acceptable from their perspective.
But what Israelis see is a
pre-1967 border that is basically just a cease-fire line from the
1948-49 war that established the country. Without the West Bank, Israel
is only 10 miles (15 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point. The
strategic highland looms over Israeli cities, visible on a clear day
from the outskirts of Tel Aviv and surrounding Jerusalem on three sides.
They fear that if their army clears out it will be replaced not by
peaceful Palestinian moderates but more menacing forces like Hamas -
which took over the Gaza Strip soon after Israel handed it fully to the
Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas in 2005.
The fact that Islamic State militants are menacing the region does
not help, and was exploited by Netanyahu during a campaign in which he
portrayed the militants as charging toward Jerusalem, with naive Israeli
leftists even helpfully pointing the way.
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